How’s your life under lockdown? Tweets tell the tale of how neighbourhoods compare

Alexa Gower, Monash University; Carl Grodach, Monash University; Dickson Lukose, Monash University; Geoff Webb, Monash University, and Liton Kamruzzaman, Monash University

Melbourne has endured one of the strictest COVID-19 lockdowns in the world. Public health announcements indicate restrictions are set to continue despite experts warning that Victoria is unlikely to get the daily average number of new cases down to just five in the near future.

Our research shows some people lack access to the essential services and amenities that support healthy and liveable places during the lockdown. We tracked 80,000 location-based tweets from January 2020 to September 2020 to understand how people are responding to Melbourne’s lockdowns.

Social media such as Twitter can provide a window into how people are emotionally managing during the lockdown and how well their neighbourhood meets their needs in this challenging time. This is particularly important as policy conversations turn to the importance of 20-minute neighbourhoods and living locally in the post-COVID city.

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Research has shown the inequality of neighbourhood access to services and amenities can have serious physical and mental health impacts. These differences raise issues of equity and whether responses are proportionate to the threat. It also means some neighbourhoods are ill-equipped to support the anticipated increase in people working from home during and after the pandemic.

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Life under lockdown isn’t the same for all

On August 2, the Victorian government established strict restrictions on movement including a 5km travel bubble and curfew in Melbourne. In a cross-discipline collaboration between Monash’s Art, Design & Architecture and Data Futures Institute, our analysis of Twitter data focused on neighbourhood amenity and opportunity at this point. Our findings reveal the differences in resident well-being across different suburbs during lockdown.

Residents of the suburb of St Kilda have been more likely to keep smiling under lockdown than the city as a whole.
Alexa Gower, Author provided

With the introduction of the first lockdown, the number of tweets posted about people’s local neighbourhoods increased by 158% compared to January and February 2020. This highlights how the lockdown turned people’s attention towards their residential area. It also indicates neighbourhood amenities became more significant for people who are no longer commuting to work in Melbourne’s CBD or other places.

People living in areas with poor access to amenities expressed higher levels of negative sentiment about their neighbourhood during the lockdown periods. Sentiment in these areas dropped three times in the year. There was a 13% drop in sentiment in March when the first lockdown came in and another 15.5% fall with the June lockdown 2.0. Sentiment continued to fall by 30% in August.

In contrast, tweets about amenity-rich areas revealed a 4% rise in positive sentiment. These residents detailed how their neighbourhood amenity helped their well-being during this time.

We see contrasting trends in sentiment in tweets from high-amenity and low-amenity neighbourhoods under lockdown.
Author provided

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Missing aspects of going to work

We also see that not everyone is as supportive of remote working arrangements as some studies claim. Before the lockdown, tweets about places in Melbourne often highlighted satisfaction with working environments. These tweets spoke of walking between meetings, and places to gather and eat out:

Beautiful day in the city – just perfect for walking between meetings and lunch at the cafe. (Outer Melbourne, March 6).

Under lockdown, the number of tweets with negative sentiment about residential neighbourhoods throughout Melbourne increased by 124%. People posted negative opinions about what was missing from their local area and expressed longing for the amenities found in their workplace. People also missed their daily commute and the opportunity to walk between places outside their neighbourhood:

Although I’m loving working from home, one thing that I really miss is my walk to the office from the station. (Outer Melbourne, July 9).

Moreover, tweets highlighted that some people don’t have enough space to work from home

When I am working at home I’m currently sharing space with the indoor clothes hangers. (Outer Melbourne, April 16).

These tweets remind us of the challenges some people face when working from home and indicate how commuting enables access to amenities that their neighbourhoods lack.

Some areas make work from home a joy

In comparison, tweets that expressed positive neighbourhood sentiment during the lockdown referred specifically to the benefits of parks and public facilities. In high-amenity areas, people expressed gratitude for these places.

Social isolating done right … I’m so #grateful to have these sort of parks right on my doorstep so I can exercise both me and the dogs 🙂🐕 (Inner Melbourne, March 29)

Being able to experience the natural environment improved their mood.

I went outside for a walk and took a moment to stand in a spot where the onshore bay breeze could freely hit me in the face while I listened to Sign ☮️ the Times. I needed that so badly. #starfishandcoffee’ (Inner Melbourne, April 16)

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Some were happy to spend more time locally even when lockdown measures had eased.

The joys of working from home and walking to support our local coffee shop. Then you are pleasantly surprised by Teddy and his marmalade skills. Just sweet! (Outer Melbourne, May 27)

Increased positive sentiment about local amenity continued longer into the year than negative tweets, highlighting the broad benefits local amenities provide to communities.

How people fare under lockdown has a lot to do with where they live.
Author provided

Work to be done on neighbourhood amenity

Comparing Melbourne’s Twitter data across different places provides insight into the impacts of neighbourhood amenity on resident well-being during lockdown. It also shows the uneven access to important neighbourhood facilities in different places and the consequences for remote working.

The lockdown experience highlights that if Melbourne is serious about achieving a city of 20-minute neighbourhoods, there is immediate work to do to improve access to everyday amenities and support remote working.

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Alexa Gower, Postdoctoral researcher, Monash University; Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University; Dickson Lukose, Professor and Senior Data Scientist, Data Futures Institute, Monash University; Geoff Webb, Professor and Research Director, Data Futures Institute, Monash University, and Liton Kamruzzaman, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More screen time, snacking and chores: a snapshot of how everyday life changed during the first coronavirus lockdown

Shutterstock

Deborah Lupton, UNSW

With Victorians heading into a new round of even harsher lockdown measures, there will again be a focus on how people will cope — the various ways such restrictions change lifestyles and how we adapt to them.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides a snapshot of how Australians changed their behaviours, activities and consumption patterns as people were forced to stay home during the country’s first COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year.

To understand how the virus affected people’s everyday lives, the ABS ran a fortnightly survey with the same group of 1,000 people from April 1 to July 10. Here are some of the key findings.

Higher levels of anxiety

Lockdown restrictions began to be implemented in Australia from mid-March. Not surprisingly, in the first ABS survey in early April, respondents reported some immediate changes, such as a loss of contact with other people.

Just under half of people reported having no in-person contact with friends or family outside their household. Nearly all had used phone and video calls and text messages to keep in touch.

By mid-April, financial hardship was also starting to set in for people. Nearly a third of respondents reported their household finances had worsened due to COVID-19.

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People’s mental health was also beginning to suffer by mid-April. Compared with a pre-COVID health national survey of Australians, twice as many people reported feelings of anxiety at some point. One in nine Australians also felt hopeless at least some of the time.

More women and younger people reported these feelings compared with men and people aged 65 years and over.

Working from home and changes in diets

Survey results from early May 2020 began to show how people were adjusting their lifestyles to the new routines. Restrictions had just started to ease slightly at this point.

Findings from this stage showed some gender differences. Women (56%) were more likely to be working from home compared with men (38%). Perhaps related to this, women were also more likely to be feeling lonely than men (28% compared with 16%).

The ABS found some notable changes in consumption habits. The early May survey showed fewer people were purchasing additional household supplies (21%) compared with March (47%), suggesting panic-buying had subsided.

Empty supermarket shelves were a familiar site during early lockdown days.
James Gourley/AAP

People were spending their money on other purchases instead. From early April to early May, one in five people reported eating more snack food, while 13% of respondents were eating more fruit and vegetables.

Purchase of takeaway or delivered food declined over this period, with almost a third of respondents reporting less frequent consumption.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of people were not drinking more in isolation. Just 14% of people reported increasing their alcohol consumption.

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More chores and reading

During the early May phase of the lockdown, people were also seeking solace in home-based activities.

Though a majority of people (60%) were reporting more time on screens during lockdown, others were turning to hobbies and other activities.

Forty-one percent of respondents said they were spending more time on household chores and other work around the house and garden: for instance, 39% were doing more reading and crafts, and 38% were spending more time cooking or baking.

When it came to physical health and exercise, though, just one in four people had increased their level of physical activity during lockdown, while one in five had actually spent less time exercising.

Restrictions ease but some lifestyle changes remain

As more restrictions began to ease around the country, people began to think about what they would do once lockdown ended. By late June, Australians’ mental health had improved compared with the height of the lockdown in April.

Fewer people reported feeling stressed, lonely, restless, nervous or that everything was an effort.

More than 90% were still keeping their distance from others, but fewer were avoiding social gatherings.

Interestingly, the easing of restrictions did not change other lifestyle routines that significantly: many people were still spending a lot of time on screens and with pets, cooking, baking and online shopping compared with before the lockdown period.

Life began to return to streets in cities like Sydney in early July, but people still reported avoiding large gatherings.
Dean Lewins/AAP

An optimistic outlook, except for Victorians

When the final ABS survey was conducted in early July, things were looking brighter for most Australians.

Three in five respondents reported their mental health status as good or very good. Most people had an optimistic outlook on the future, with over half believing life had already returned to normal or would return to normal within six months.

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The big exception was people living in Victoria. In late June and early July, Melbourne had begun to experience a second wave of infections and a re-introduction of restrictions.

Not surprisingly, only 2% of Victorians said their life had already returned to normal or had not changed due to COVID-19.

Where to from here?

The ABS has finished this survey, but is starting a new monthly survey in August, with a new group of respondents. This survey will also focus on Australians’ everyday lives and well-being during the pandemic.

There are also many university-based social research projects currently underway. Once completed, their findings will provide a more detailed picture of how life has changed in Australia during COVID-19 — a situation that continues to evolve day by day.

Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Playing with the ‘new normal’ of life under coronavirus

Larissa Hjorth, RMIT University and Sybille Lammes, Leiden University

The COVID-19 pandemic has recalibrated everything: work, life and play. As work, schooling, socialising and play have moved into the digital and the confines of our homes, cities have become spaces for reimagining — especially as new sites for formal and informal play.

Playgrounds — once filled with children, parents, grandparents and animals — now look like crime scenes, with police tape and all. They have become forbidden territories, temporal lieux de memoirs of how we used to play. And as play goes into the home and digital, we are reminded of the importance of non-digital play in how we socialise and innovate.

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As cities get reconfigured under pandemic restrictions, it is an important time to reflect not only on changing practices of work but also of play. What can be adapted and translated into the digital, and what can’t?

Play — as a form of creativity, sociality and innovation — is a crucial skill for future workforces. Play provides possibilities for reimagining the city. It draws out new and different connections between people, things, buildings and places. And playgrounds, rather than being spaces that set boundaries for play and non-play, remind us of the importance of play in the social fabric of healthy cities.

Play and the city

Cities have long been sites for play. Play scholars, urban theorists, designers and creative practitioners, to name a few, have discussed the important role of urban play and urban playgrounds. They show that play in cities has a complex and uneven history.

Movements such as the 1960s Situationist International and the New Games Movement in the early 1970s sought to turn the whole city into a playground for politics, environmentalism and sociality. These movements subverted traditional ideas of playgrounds as designated and separate areas.

Interestingly, we are now living in times that playgrounds have to become internalised in the home, if we have one. And while, for some, videogames have become a substitute for alternative sociality in a time of physical distancing, it does not replace the sensorial experience and learnings of non-digital play.

Playgrounds have long had an important role in representing cultural and social mores, reflecting the relational, political and psychological dimensions of the city. They expose how a society views childhood, control, leisure and space.

For example, in Denmark after the second world war, “junkyard” playgrounds were revolutionary sites for reclaiming urban spaces. Likewise, 1960s Situationist International’s practices such as dérive (drifting) transformed cities like Paris into multisensory playgrounds.

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Such interventionist ways of producing urban playgrounds resonate with urban practices today — such as parkour, which subverts “normal” ways of navigating the city.

Over past decades, artists and designers have explored the city’s “playability”, thus expanding our territories of play and heightening their unevenness. Famous collectives such as Blast Theory transform the city into a theatre of life in which videogames are played through physical streets. Initiatives such as Playable Cities in Bristol, Tokyo and Melbourne (to name a few) demonstrate how urban play can choreograph innovative ways of being in the city that emphasise the social, relational and sensory experiences of urban environments.

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Playing with domestic cartographies

Now our mobility has been limited to domestic postage-stamp size, play is even more salient. As artist Kera Hill’s map poignantly shows, how can we playfully reimagine our habitat?

Artist Kera Hill’s ‘Commuting in Corona Times’.
Kera Hill. Author provided.

What do our creative maps of our “sanity walks” (escaping Zoomlandia for walking on phone “feetings”) say about how cities might be reimagined by foot? How might a city be reimagined playfully via smell or as a playful space for listening and quiet? Or into a playground that celebrates multiculturalism?

Who (still) has the means to move playfully and turn fear and boredom into play? How can play transform mobility practices to celebrate walking rather than cars?

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COVID-19 highlights the unevenness of city geography further, but also shows how we can reimagine play when pushed to the extreme and can (re)connect in hopeful ways. There are lessons to be learnt here. As we go back to the “new normal”, let play help engender our reimagining of cities as future sites for care and social innovation.

Larissa Hjorth, Professor of Mobile Media and Games. Director of the Design & Creative Practice Platform., RMIT University and Sybille Lammes, Professor of New Media and Digital Culture and Academic Director, Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), Leiden University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Transmitting COVID-19 to another person could send you to prison for life. Here’s why this is worrisome

James Ross/AAP

Felicity Gerry, Deakin University and Lorana Bartels, Australian National University

Last week, Health Minister Greg Hunt issued a stark warning that the deliberate transmission of COVID-19 could be punishable by a lifetime prison sentence.

Hunt said he sought legal advice from the attorney-general’s department, which said such an action was an offence under the general criminal laws in every state and territory.

The most serious of these offences may carry maximum penalties up to imprisonment for life, if somebody was to take a step which led to the death of a healthcare worker. If it were a deliberate transmission.

He also said it was against the law to

cause someone else to fear that they are having transmitted to them the virus, for example by coughing on them.

Hunt was responding to reports of people abusing healthcare staff and police by coughing and spitting on them.

NSW has also now introduced a A$5,000 on-the-spot fine for spitting or coughing on frontline workers, while intentionally spitting or coughing on police officers could result in six months in jail.

We understand these are extreme times, but governments should not rush to announcements that transmitting COVID-19 could be subject to criminal prosecution, especially with the risk of a life sentence.

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What are the issues with a law like this?

In general, the passage and enforcement of all laws must be tested for “necessity”. This implies two things: the measure corresponds to a pressing social need and is proportionate to the legitimate aim being pursued.

There is also a distinction between public health and public order laws. The current emergency laws provide exceptional powers to require certain behaviours to protect public health, not to combat public disorder, which is dealt with under general criminal laws.

The danger of adding to general criminal laws in a crisis is the potential over-criminalisation of the general public.

There have been some reports of public disorder during the current pandemic, but as yet, there is no evidence of widespread deliberate and intentional transmission of COVID-19.

The application of the law in cases like this is also uncertain and unclear. For example, what do Hunt’s words, “take a step” and “deliberate”, mean in this context? How would it be proved that coughing on someone led to the death of a healthcare worker?

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First, it would be difficult to identify a specific individual as the source of a possible infection, particularly since the virus can remain on surfaces for several days. 

Then there is the question of intent. As a matter of law, it is not merely proof of deliberate (rather than accidental) conduct that creates criminal liability, but also someone’s state of mind at the time of the action and whether it is in the public interest to prosecute.

This is a much more complex issue in public health cases.

In 2013, a circus acrobat, Godfrey Zaburoni, was jailed for deliberately infecting his girlfriend with HIV through unprotected sex. But his conviction was quashed by the High Court, which stated

a person’s awareness of the risk that his or her conduct may result in harm does not … support the inference that the person intended to produce the harm.

There is a very fine distinction between deliberately infecting someone with a disease – particularly where the chance of infection is low (as it is with HIV) – and taking a risk that could infect someone.

Moreover, assaulting or spitting at public health workers is already a crime under existing laws, and doing so during a health emergency can be taken into account on sentence. So, Hunt’s announcement has no practical effect beyond mere rhetoric.

The threat of prosecuting people for deliberately transmitting the virus may also add to people’s fears during an uncertain time. For instance, people could be worried about the legal implications of coughing near a healthcare worker and delay getting medical help as a result.

In addition, large on-the-spot fines could also disproportionately affect certain segments of society, such as the poor or homeless.

The need to decriminalise transmission of viruses

Advocates in other countries are seeking to decriminalise the transmission, exposure or non-disclosure of viruses like HIV, arguing such laws can be unfairly or unevenly applied.

In the United Kingdom, a hairdresser, Daryll Rowe, was sentenced to life in prison two years ago for intending to infect or attempting to infect 10 men with HIV.

In the trial, the prosecution relied on the number of his sexual partners, his deception about his HIV status, the finding of tampered condoms and the vile text messages he sent after sexual encounters to prove its case that he intentionally infected the other men.

But there was also evidence that he was otherwise trying to control his infectiousness through alternative remedies and, notably, that he had limited contact with sexual partners rather than relationships, meaning there was less regular contact and less chance of transmission.

As a result, he was convicted of intentional infection, even though there was evidence he was otherwise trying to avoid this.

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The criminal law in both the UK and Australia does not provide a defence where others voluntarily assume risk. This could put all promiscuous people at risk of conviction in cases like this, even though such actions themselves are not crimes.

The same theory could apply to COVID-19. Anyone who does not maintain appropriate social distancing could be at risk of conviction under these laws and subject to an overly harsh punishment.

We need a public health, not criminal law, approach

Public health emergencies may bring criminal sanctions for non-compliance of restrictions like social distancing and quarantining – but even here, some have expressed concern about the scope and enforcement of the new laws.

Already, the pandemic is placing significant strain on police, courts and prisons. 

Governments should allocate adequate resources to protect healthcare workers, rather than promoting the application of extreme laws that will be difficult to prove and waste resources attempting to do so when the current emergency laws are more than sufficient.

Felicity Gerry, Professor and Queen’s Counsel, Deakin University and Lorana Bartels, Professor and Program Leader of Criminology, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Living Forever

Ratko Mladic, the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’, to spend life in prison for genocide and war crimes

Melanie O’Brien, The University of Queensland

The former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladić, has been found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and sentenced to life in prison.

Mladić was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The tribunal declared that the crimes he committed were “among the most heinous known to humankind”.

Trials of former high-ranking war criminals are often peppered with drama, and this week’s verdict announcement was no exception. Disruption of trials is a way for previously powerful people – usually men – to reclaim some of their lost power.

Halfway through the verdict summary announcement, Mladić requested a break. After a lengthy break, the court was informed that Mladić had high blood pressure, but on medical advice, deemed it appropriate to continue. At this point, Mladić refused to sit and began shouting at the judges: “this is a lie” and “shame on you”.

He was thrown out of court, and watched the rest of the proceedings from another room. This unfortunately meant that victims were unable to see his reaction to the long-awaited verdict and sentencing.

Long road to justice

First indicted by the Tribunal in 1995, Mladić stayed in military resorts, protected even though a fugitive. He later went into hiding until his arrest in Serbia in 2011. Mladić’s trial began in 2012, concluded in 2016, with the verdict delivered on November 22.

Mladić, who came to be known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, rose through the ranks to become the commander of the Bosnian Serb army in 1992, participating in atrocities committed under Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević’s regime. Milošević was also tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but died before he could be convicted.

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Mladić played a leadership role in these atrocities, commanding the army as it committed crimes across the regime. He has been convicted of “Joint Criminal Enterprise” – the international equivalent of conspiracy – alongside other leaders such as Milošević and Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić. The tribunal found that Mladić was instrumental in the crimes and they would not have taken place without his involvement.

The atrocities included the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted for 44 months from 1992-95. Some 10,000 people died during the siege, including many children. Some of Mladić’s other crimes were committed at internment camps such as Omarska and Foča, where thousands were tortured and raped. He has also been held responsible for the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in order to leverage NATO to stop air strikes.

Convicting the high-ranking Mladić is symbolic and momentous, as he was the commander of the soldiers who carried out these actions.

Perhaps most significant is the conviction for genocide over mass killings at Srebrenica in July 1995. Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed and buried in mass graves. Identification of remains is ongoing, with thousands of bones and personal belongings still being analysed in hope of a match for families that continue to seek the whereabouts of loved ones. Identification is hampered by the fact that two months after the killings, bodies were moved to alternative mass grave locations.

A welcome day for survivors

The many survivors have waited a long time justice, both for themselves and for their lost loved ones. Some victims travelled to The Hague to hear the verdict first hand.

It is particularly poignant, given that some of the war criminals convicted by the tribunal have already served their sentences and returned to Serbia and Bosnia, now living in communities with their victims. A life sentence for Mladić is a source of satisfaction to the victims; a minimum justice for their suffering and loss.

Legal consequences of this ruling are also substantial. Proving genocide in court is challenging for prosecutors, with the requirement of a “special intent” to eliminate part or whole of a specific population. Convictions for genocide are rare; only a handful of convicted perpetrators at the ICTY were found guilty of genocide, including Karadžić and Radislav Krstić, a deputy commander in the Bosnian Serb army.

The confirmation that the Srebrenica massacre was indeed a genocide is important, because many Bosnian Serbs continue to deny the fact. Victims hope the ruling will contribute to a broader acknowledgement, which in turn could help the reconciliation process.

Yet others have little hope that the ruling will change things. Srebrenica’s Serb mayor Mladen Grujičić still denies the genocide, and many Serbian nationalists still laud Mladić and his fellow war criminals as heroes.

Mladić was found not guilty of one count of genocide, in reference to a broader spate of killings throughout Bosnia. This is in keeping with previous decisions, where Srebrenica has been deemed genocide, but the overall objective of the leadership for the whole of the Yugoslav territory has not.

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Read more: Ratko Mladić’s conviction and why the evidence of mass graves still matters

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This verdict is the final judgement to be delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, slated to close at the end of this year. Since it was established in 1993, the tribunal has indicted 161 individuals and convicted 84 perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Some 4,650 witnesses have appeared, more than 1,000 of whom testified about the Srebrenica genocide. There are only seven proceedings remaining, with the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals finalising cases. The tribunal has undoubtedly contributed to justice and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.

However, success has not been absolute, with criticism that sentences have been too short. There is also inevitable post-atrocity denial of crimes committed by perpetrators and their communities, with continued rejection by Serbian communities and politicians of the validity and decisions of the Tribunal.

These 84 convictions are clearly only a small proportion of the thousands of perpetrators. With the wind-up of the tribunal, remaining perpetrators will continue to be tried at local war crimes courts in Bosnia.

Throughout Europe, 14 countries have housed convicted tribunal war criminals in their prisons. Mladić will serve his sentence in a country yet to be determined.

While it may not bring their loved ones back, survivors can have some comfort in knowing the man who ordered and oversaw the atrocities will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Melanie O’Brien, Research fellow, The University of Queensland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Explainer: how to extend your phone’s battery life

Without proper care, mobile phone batteries can degrade and hold less charge.
Arthur Mustafa/Shutterstock

Jacek Jasieniak, Monash University

As mobile phone users, all we want is enough battery life to last the day. Frustratingly, the older the device, the less power it seems to have.

In fact, the amount of battery life our mobiles have on any given day depends on two key factors: how we use them on that particular day, and how we used them in the past.

Mobile phones use lithium-ion batteries for energy storage. In this type of battery, lithium metal and lithium ions move in and out of individual electrodes, causing them to physically expand and contract.

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Unfortunately, these processes are not completely reversible and the batteries lose their charge capacity and voltage as the number of charge and discharge cycles grows.

To make matters worse, the electrolyte (electrically conductive liquid) that connects the electrodes also degrades throughout these cycles.

The ability of lithium-ion batteries to store charge depends on the extent of their degradation. This means there is a link between how we handle our devices today and the charge capacity available in the future.

Through a few simple steps, users can minimise this degradation and extend their device’s life.

Lithium ion batteries are the main battery type in mobile phones.
Andy Melton/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Strategies for extending battery capacity

Control battery discharge

Typical lithium-ion batteries for mobile phones are supposed to retain 80% of their charge capacity after 300-500 charge/discharge cycles. However, batteries rarely produce this level of performance, with charge storage capacity sometimes reduced to 80% levels within only 100 cycles.

Fortunately, we can extend our future battery capacity by limiting how much we discharge our mobile phone batteries. With most battery degradation occurring during deep discharge/charge cycles, it is actually better to limit the battery discharge during any one cycle before charging it again.

As it happens, our devices do have battery-management systems, which reduce damage from overcharging and shut down automatically if the battery gets too low.

Nonetheless, to maximise the battery capacity in the future we should avoid that 0% battery mark altogether, while also keeping those batteries at least partially charged if storing them for a prolonged period of time to avoid deep discharge.

Extend charging times

Many of today’s mobile devices have a fast charge option that enables users to supercharge them in minutes rather than hours. This is convenient when we’re in a rush, but should be avoided otherwise.

Why? Because charging a battery too quickly reduces its storage capacity.

Physically, the shuttling of lithium metal and lithium ions between the electrodes in lithium-ion batteries is a slow process. Therefore, charging at lower rates allows more complete shuttling to occur, which enhances the battery’s charge capacity.

For example, charging a phone in five minutes compared with the standard two hours can reduce the battery capacity for that charge cycle by more than 20%.

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Keep the temperature just right

Fortunately, for most parts of the country, temperatures in Australia sit between 0℃ and 45℃ throughout the year. This is the exact range in which lithium-ion batteries can be stored to maintain optimal long-term charge capacity.

Below 0℃, the amount of power available within the battery system is reduced because of a restriction in the movement of lithium metal and lithium ions within the electrodes and through the electrolyte.

Above 45℃, the amount of power available is actually enhanced compared with lower temperatures, so you can get a little more “juice” from your battery under hotter conditions. However, at these temperatures the degradation of the battery is also greatly accelerated, so over an extended period of time its ability to store charge will be reduced.

As a result, phones should be kept out of direct sunlight for prolonged periods, especially in summer when surface temperatures can increase to above 70℃.

Mobile phones only have a limited number of charge cycles before the battery loses its capacity to recharge entirely.
www.shutterstock.com

Use battery-saving modes

Aaron Carroll and Gernot Heiser from Data61 analysed the power consumption of different smartphone components under a range of typical scenarios.

They concluded there are a handful of simple software and hardware strategies that can be used to preserve battery life.

• Reduce screen brightness. The easiest way to conserve battery life while maintaining full function is to reduce the brightness of the screen. For devices such as mobile phones that have an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, you can also use the “light on dark” option for viewing.

• Turn off the cellular network or limit talk time. The connection to the cellular network uses the global system for mobile communication (GSM) module. The GSM is the most dominant energy-consuming component in a mobile phone, so it is beneficial to turn it off altogether or at least limit call time.

• Use Wi-Fi, not 4G. With Wi-Fi being up to 40% less power-hungry than 4G for internet browsing, turning off cellular data and using Wi-Fi instead will help your battery life.

• Limit video content. Video processing is one of the most power-consuming operations on a mobile device.

• Turn on smart battery modes. All modern mobile devices have a smart battery saving mode (for instance, Android has Power Saving Mode and iOS has Low Power Mode). These software features modify central processing unit (CPU) usage for different apps, screen brightness, notifications and various hardware options to reduce energy consumption.

• Use Airplane mode. This mode typically disables GSM, Wi-Fi, bluetooth and GPS functions on your devices. When turning off all such auxiliary functions, the device will use only up to 5% of its usual energy consumption with the screen off. For comparison, simply having your device in idle can still use more than 15%.

Enhancing your phone’s battery usability requires a combination of limiting the use of power-hungry hardware and software, as well as handling mobile devices so as to maximise the charge capacity and minimise battery degradation.

By adopting these simple strategies, users can extend their battery life by more than 40% in any given day while maintaining a more consistent battery capacity throughout the lifetime of the device.

Jacek Jasieniak, Associate Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Director of the Monash Energy Materials & Systems Institute (MEMSI), Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Mission Life

The links below are to three articles dealing with real life on the mission field – well worth a read.

For more visit:
– http://gilandamy.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/what-missionaries-arent-telling-you_27.html
– http://gilandamy.blogspot.ca/2015/05/what-missionaries-arent-telling-you-and.html
– http://gilandamy.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/what-missionaries-arent-telling-you-and_28.html

Social Networking in Real Life

Life with Cancer

The link below is to an article that takes a look at life with cancer from a Christian standpoint.

For more visit:
http://www.ligonier.org/blog/life-cancer-one-year-later/